Peter Pearce

Dr Peter Pearce is Director of Clinical Training at Metanoia Institute, London, where he has held senior academic and leadership roles for over two decades, including Faculty Head for Applied Socialand Organisational Sciences and Head of the Person-Centred Department.

Peter’s clinical career began in NHS community multidisciplinary teams specialising in adult mental health and learning disability services, where he held clinical and consultant roles for almost 20 years. He led the Metanoia Institute team that collaborated with NHS England and BACP’s Research and Professional Standards departments, to co-author the National Curriculum for Person-Centred Experiential Counselling for Depression (PCE-CfD) and serves on the Expert Advisory Group for the NHS Talking Therapies (formerly IAPT) programme. In 2022 Peter chaired the QAA Benchmark Statement group for Counselling and Psychotherapy. 

Peter has been principal or co-investigator and Clinical Lead on a number of large-scale, national and European-funded, research projects, including ETHOS, ALIGN, ProReal, and HEROINES, with a sustained focus on practice-based and relationally grounded evidence in work with adults, young people and marginalised groups. The ETHOS team received the 2023 BACP Outstanding Research Award.

His publications include multiple peer-reviewed journal articles, books and book chapters, as well as co-editing Person-Centred Practice at the Difficult Edge (2014).

He is regularly invited to contribute to national policy, workforce development, and professional standards initiatives, and continues to supervise and examine doctoral students, advise on NHS workforce practice innovation, and train therapists in the person-centred tradition.